Due to rising currency value, Swedes now speculating in Spain’s housing market

I saw this story yesterday in a Swedish newspaper and thought it was interesting enough to comment on. Apparently, Swedish investment professionals are telling clients that the Spanish market is “hot” right now, given the depressed state of house prices there. I don’t know exactly what to make of this phenomenon since I haven’t seen it widely reported. But it bears noting as Sweden’s economy is doing quite well. And signs of speculative housing activity in Germany, which has done well, are marked.

The article came out yesterday in the Svenska Dagbladet, titled, “This is how you buy Spanish property”. The premise in the article is that 1. many Swedes are now (in the winter months) looking for another place to invest in property. 2. the krona has risen vis-a-vis the euro and 3. prices in Spain are well off their 2007 peak. Conclusion: buy in Spain. Now, of course, the article doesn’t say directly to go out and buy. It caveats this by saying prices could fall more, blah, blah, blah. Nonetheless, the impression I got from the article was that these were Swedish punters doing a bit of market timing in the Spanish housing market because of the relative buoyancy of the Swedish economy.

Source: SvD